COMPREHENSIVE READING INSTRUCTION FOR STUDENTS WITH INTELLECTUALDISABILITIES: FINDINGS FROM THE FIRST THREE YEARSOF A LONGITUDINAL STUDY

摘要

This longitudinal experimental study investigated the reading progress of students with IQs rang-ing from 40 to 69 (i.e., range for students with mild or moderate mental retardation or intellectualdisabilities [ID]) across at least two academic years, as well as the effectiveness of a compre-hensive reading intervention for these students across the same period of time. Participants were59 elementary students who were randomly placed into treatment and contrast groups. Studentsin the treatment condition received daily, comprehensive reading instruction in small groups of1-4 students for 40-50 minutes per session across two or three academic years. Measures ofphonemic awareness, phonics, word recognition, comprehension, and oral language were in-cluded. Findings indicate that students with IQs in the ID range made significant progress onmultiple standardized measures of reading. Furthermore, significant differences between the treat-ment group and contrast group were found on several measures, including progress-monitoringmeasures of phoneme segmentation, phonics, and oral reading fluency. Results demonstrate that,on average, students with ID, even those with IQs in the moderate range, learn basic reading skillsgiven consistent, explicit, and comprehensive reading instruction across an extended period oftime.